Regard

Regard is the stage name of Dardan Aliu, a Kosovo Albanian DJ and record producer born on 23 July 1993 in Ferizaj, where he was also raised. He makes house and dance-pop, and in 2019 a dance cover of an older R&B song turned him into an international chart act.

That song was "Ride It", his house version of Jay Sean's 2008 single. He told Headliner Magazine that the idea came to him on the way home from one of his gigs, with Jay Sean's song playing and the sound of the club still ringing in his head; by the time he got home he had the basic idea. The track first took off on TikTok, where it gathered 4.1 million views, and Ministry of Sound signed him and released "Ride It" in July 2019.

The single topped the Spotify Viral chart in the US and entered the Billboard Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart at number 21. It went to number one in Ireland, number two on the UK Singles Chart and number three in Australia, with heavy airplay on BBC Radio 1, Kiss FM and other British stations. On 30 December 2019 Regard appeared with Jay Sean on the BBC's Top of the Pops New Year's Eve special, and TikTok's head of music partnerships in Europe used the song as an example of how the platform can carry an artist to a global audience.

"Secrets", with the British singer-songwriter Raye, followed on 23 April 2020. It reached the UK top ten, where it was certified silver, and the top twenty in the Netherlands, Belgium and Poland.

In April 2021 Ministry of Sound released "You", which Regard produced and recorded with the Australian singer Troye Sivan and the Canadian singer Tate McRae. The '80s-flavoured dance-pop song about a relationship that is hard to let go of was the first collaboration between the three. It reached number 58 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number one on Billboard's Dance/Electronic Songs chart, a first for all of them, and entered the top 50 in countries including Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.